


dear little village, little town of mine

by vegetas



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Gen, Period Typical Attitudes, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Shabbat | Sabbath | Sabt, terror bingo 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 17:23:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21359896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vegetas/pseuds/vegetas
Summary: solomon tozer is a congregationalist, except when he is notbingo fill: thomas blanky
Comments: 26
Kudos: 52
Collections: The Terror Bingo (2019)





	dear little village, little town of mine

**Author's Note:**

> i recently discovered that thomas blanky was Jewish! and i thought that was extremely cool, so i wanted to play with that. i am a Non-Jewish person, but i have a deep respect and personal ties to the faith through friends and family, so i wanted to explore what that might look like <3
> 
> thanks to hannah for beta'ing!

_ first, you will light two candles, according to the customs of your community.  _ _   
_ _ the first of these is shamor, keep. the second is zakhor, remember.  _

“Sargeant.”

Solomon looks up and over his shoulder where he is sitting beside Heather to see Mr. Blanky standing with his hands in front of him. The master nods at Heather’s body. 

  
“I had a suspicion you would be down here,” he says with a little smile, eyes darting over the bowl and rag and comb that Solomon has placed on a barrel beside his usual stool, their purpose obvious. “I’d be lucky to have a mate like you in my corner, were I in the same state.”

Solomon feels an unexpected flush come over him. 

“It’s only right he keep his dignity, Sir,” he says with a clear of his throat, leaving it at that. Blanky accepts the answer with a funny tilt of his head, eyes cast upwards. He smirks, but it doesn't seem to be at Solomon’s expense. 

“Am I needed, Sir?” Solomon tries, searching for the meaning of this interaction. The older man’s face softens, smoothing the weather-beaten wrinkles. 

  
“Aye,” he sighs, stepping a little further into the hold. He puts a fist on his waist, gazing about the gloom before coming closer to inspect Heather. “I was wondering if you might know the time?”

“The...time,” Solomon puzzles. Blanky lifts his brow expectantly. Tozer swallows down a retort for a man he respects less, and pats for his watch. “It’s eight past seven in the evening, Mr. Blanky.”

The master blows a breath and tuts. 

“Well,” he shrugs, boards creaking and complaining where he steps. “Can’t be helped. I reckon we’d be forgiven for it.”

Solomon’s forehead furrows. 

  
“Forgiven for what, Mr. Blanky?”

“Being off by a few hours,” the man replies, as though this solves it all. He puts a hand on Tozer’s shoulder in a warm clasp, kind eyes twinkling in the dim light of the single lamp he’s lit. It picks up the silver in his beard, which usually appears more of a grizzly dish-pan gray. 

“Won’t make much difference for your case. You’re late by more than that, I would wager. Besides, God himself made this fuckin’ land with no proper sunset.” There is a chuckle in his voice as he says the words and Solomon is mortified when his own expression opens into awe and then inevitable shame.

“I’m congregationalist -,” he finds his voice rasping from the back of his throat in a furious whisper, fist clenching on the knee of his uniform trousers. Blanky laughs at this even louder, the salty, gruff bark that can be heard from anywhere on the ship, the backs of his teeth showing when he tosses his head back, leaning away. 

“Sure you are,” Blanky snickers, patting between his shoulder blades with a hoot of amusement. “Of course you are, lad,” he goes on. “I know  _ plenty _ of congregationalists.” 

He tugs a little bit at the back of Solomon’s collar playfully, far too friendly, and Solomon jerks his head back. 

“I don’t know what you’re implying,” Solomon snaps, looking aside, heartbeat quickening. His ears are burning under his hair. There’s a beat of silence, but Solomon is too baleful to lift his face and meet the man’s winking eyes. He should properly tell him off. If it were anyone else he’d spit the words curling on his tongue, body tensing reflexively to accompany them. 

_ I’m no Hebrew - ! _

Instead he stares at the floorboards and swallows hard, wishing that the man would simply depart so all of this can be set aside and never spoken of again. 

He should know by now that Mr. Blanky is hardly a man to back down from anything, least of all young marines. 

“Come along, Solomon Tozer,” Blanky says, openly ignoring his protests - even the silent ones. “Let us welcome the Queen together,” he keeps his voice light as he speaks. “It will do you good.”

Solomon takes a deep breath, and then another. 

He never thought that he wore this part of himself this way, but now he’s forced to wonder what it is that tipped him off to Blanky.

“How,” he begins, but then stops himself. Blanky puts his hand on his belted waist and looks pointedly at the body laid out in the hammock. 

“You speak to him,” Blanky says serenely. “Not in passing. Like he’s here.” He gives another noncommittal shrug. “Most would say he’s already buried.” His face scrunches in a smile, gleaming gaze meeting Solomon’s tired one. “You tell him jokes.”

“Most would think that only makes me a fool,” Solomon admits with a deprecating little laugh, flexing his gloved hand. 

“Aye,” Blanky agrees, rocking a bit, canting his head thoughtfully. “Most would wonder what in the bloody hell you think you’re doing, not letting him die.”

Solomon hardly reacts to the hollow truth. His throat is getting thick. He looks at the water in the bowl and it ripples as he shifts restlessly, eyes straying again to Heather. Guilt pools in his gut. It shouldn’t be fair to leave him like this. To go up, and follow Mr. Blanky, when he may sense the betrayal. He swears, sometimes, that he moves when Solomon isn’t looking. 

_ Something must be there. Lights are on in the windows _ , he thinks. 

  
  


“But,” Blanky continues, as though he’s heard him, or read it on his face. “Others may see it differently. A more scholarly man than me might say if a lamp is on its way out there’s no need to hasten it. Could argue he who closes the eyes of a dying man is shedding blood. Smothering a soul is murder twice over.”

A brief silence enfolds them, Solomon absorbing the words, and then Blanky is chuckling again. 

  
“Didn’t take me long to realize. You’re sitting low, lad,” he taps the short leg of the stool with his toe as he says it and Solomon sighs. 

  
“I couldn’t think of anything else,” Solomon replies, looking at Heather’s prone form in the hammock. “When my grandmother passed we sat around on boxes...”

As he stands he reaches for the bowl of water and rag but Blanky stops him. 

“Leave it for now,” Blanky murmurs, squeezing his wrist over his red sleeve, gently steering him through the dark. 

*  
  


“Go on,” Blanky says, nudging him with an elbow. 

Solomon sheepishly pulls his balled up wig from his pocket and places it on his head, which earns yet another small laugh from Blanky, who does the same before he opens a slender wooden case. 

There’s a safety with Blanky, a certainty that it will be well, that overwhelms his desires to callously dismiss this as nothing more than a misunderstanding; not even the pervading embarrassment of being  _ found out _ by his fellows seems enough. He can even smile a little. 

They are nearly toe-to-toe in the narrow berth, each on one side of the folded-down writing desk, which is bare of everything, the articles once occupying it tucked away onto shelves or stacked on the bed itself. The sounds of late-evening and the constant groan and saw of the ice seize the ship, but the berth is cramped and auspiciously quiet with the door closed.

Solomon is desperately self-conscious, every little breath and sound his body makes obnoxious in the presence of such a ceremony and proximity to a man whose personhood speaks for him even when  _ he _ does not. 

It must be obvious, the yearning steaming from him while he watches these sacred, intimate, obstinate, rituals unfold; a nearly childish excitement echoing in the small space witnessing what he has suffered long to forget. His mouth waters, like he has a sweet in his cheek, at the thought of his grandmother’s  _ lokshen _ waiting for when they finished.

Blanky withdraws first the two small silver candlesticks, and then the candles themselves. Then there is the silver tray, very small, for the match. Then the silver cup, and folded neatly, the cloth. 

Solomon’s eyes dance over the cover, white and creased from being stowed, with its familiar characters and scenes: embroidered braids of  _ challah _ , and wine, and  _ menorah _ , the work fine and precise and loving. 

“My wife’s handiwork,” Blanky comments, pride coloring the aside, and for a split second Solomon sees the vision of their canopy - a tangled web of branches sheltering them. He straightens up where his shoulders have crept into a hunch over the table, watching Blanky gently cover the saucer and two biscuits with the shroud. 

Without another word he pulls a match from a case and strikes it and the close air fills with the scent - sulfurous and warm. Solomon is rapt, Blanky lighting the first, and then the second before laying the match on the tray to extinguish. His face is calm and sure, and Solomon feels some of his own anxiety begin to recede. The man has a way of putting everyone at ease; he’s heard the stories, how he wields his luck like a little living charm. 

_ Three times _ , he counts, watching Blanky circle the air with his hands, smoke drawing towards him, before he covers his eyes. Just as his mother did, for you cannot view the light before the blessing is complete; you must cover the bread, to save it the embarrassment before the wine. (Is all hierarchy so ridiculous? How can it be so gracious, and sincere? Even for bread, and wine, and light? He wants to ask him, and squirrels the hungry thoughts away, perhaps for later.)

_ Barukh atah  _ _ Adonai _ _ Eloheinu melekh ha’olam asher kid’shanu b’mitzvotav v’tzivanu l’hadlik ner shel shabbat -  _

Blanky’s voice is low and muttering and indisputably English - all the grit and gravel grinding along with the words - but it does constitute as singing. _ Blessed are You, Lord our God, Ruler of the Universe, who has sanctified us with commandments, and commanded us to light Shabbat candles - _

Blanky looks serenely at the flames when he finishes, and Solomon waits patiently for him to begin the _k_ _ iddush _ . As a younger person he always thought it was incredible how his father could fill the cup all the way to nearly overflowing without spilling a drop.

He is surprised, of course, when the older man turns to him instead. Solomon’s confusion must show as Blanky, who is shorter than him, steps around the desk and gently reaches up to take Solomon’s bewildered face between his chapped hands. He gives Solomon a long, knowing, look, and then he brings Solomon’s head down so that his mouth is centered above his eyes when he speaks next.

“May you be like Ephraim and Menasheh,” he says, in his usual clip. “May God bless you and guard you from the ways of shame and of strangers. May God show you favor and be gracious to you. May God show you kindness and grant you peace, and long life.”

Solomon can scarcely breathe. 

“You are a son who honors his father with courage and obedience, as Joshua honored Moses,” he goes on, generously embellishing the blessing with his own. Solomon can feel his twitching smile and chapped lips against the clammy skin under his bangs. “And you are a son who  _ honors _ his friends with loyalty and care, as Jonathan  _ honored _ David.”

“May God be pleased with these acts,” he says, voice vibrating straight through his forehead as it lowers to a whisper. “May God grant you comfort they are not in vain.”

Solomon watches with horror as silent tears plink onto Blanky’s water-stained boots, the words ringing in his ears. He reaches up, his hand lighting on Blanky’s elbow and then pulling away only to come back, gripping harder. Blanky continues holding his head between his hands, palm rubbing at his beard and then patting his cheek.

  
“Alright, my boy?” Blanky murmurs, after a while passes.

Solomon nods his head emphatically up and down, sniffing hard. 

When Blanky pulls away, back to the desk, Solomon clears his throat and swallows the lump there. His eyes are raw, and the candlelight seems brighter - pointed - and he loses himself in their twin glow before turning attention back to Blanky taking up the cup.

He is about to begin when he pauses, glancing sidelong at Solomon, his eyebrow arching. 

Wordlessly he holds it out to him. 

“You know it?” he asks, and Solomon stares at the cup. There had never been the right time, only eager waiting for the day his hand might unfold from its boy’s fist into the perfect rose of longing just the size to hold it as Blanky holds it now. It never came, till now. 

The light winks on the polished silver, catching on the characters etched there. He had not seen them before, would have believed it to be plain at first glance. 

“I do, Sir,” he says, clearing his throat again. He takes the cup, steadier than he believed he could be - the wine inside does not even shiver or lap against the rim. He holds it up, and chances a glance at Blanky who makes good show at schooling his face, but Solomon can tell he’s preening at the sight. 

  
It is as though he has imagined this; as though he  _ is _ his son. 

They are both sons, Solomon reflects. Ones who can never be orphaned or abandoned - not completely. Sons of  _ Israel _ , of  _ this _ God. Abraham, and Isaac, and the great sages that followed. 

Perhaps Thomas Blanky is one of them - those great men remembered. The ones that plow on, toasting joy and breaking bread, diligently seeking the secret light in the dark and cold, even with hearts burdened by grief and uncertainty. 

Strangers leaving indelible tracks on these far strange lands they wander through; making homes from the inhospitable. 


End file.
